Breast pumps are devices used for expression of milk from a woman's breast, for instance if the baby is not able to extract the milk itself for different reasons for instance due to suckling problems or when the mother is separated from the baby. Also other reasons, like excessive milk production or breast problems or injuries may result in the woman using a breast pump instead of breast feeding the baby. Different kinds of breast pumps exist, such as manually driven or electrically driven. The known breast pumps have different disadvantages. For instance, a manually driven breast pump requires a lot of manual work to apply a desired suction frequency and a desired suction power. This may result in a time consuming operation. In order to ease the expression of milk, electrically driven breast pumps are available, which breast pumps replace the manual operation by an electrically driven pumping operation. The user of the breast pump only needs to control the settings of the breast pump, by for instance controlling the frequency of suction cycles and/or suction power. However, in practice it is not easy for a user to control the settings in an intended manner, thereby risking wrong use of the breast pump resulting in an efficiency reduction of the pump or even damaging the breast tissue. In fact, such problems can actually result in giving up breast feeding completely. This is not desired, since it is known that breast feeding a baby contributes to the baby's health.
An improved breast pump, trying to guide the user in applying the proper breast pump settings, is for instance disclosed in US 2005/0028342. The known breast pump comprises a milk flow sensor that measures the milk flow during the milk expression cycle. In dependence of the measured milk flow, the breast pump is able to switch between different pumping settings. However, such a breast pump does not take into account that before and after the actual milk expression, there is no milk flow or a minimum milk flow. Therefore, during the period before and after the actual milk expression, the user cannot be properly guided in applying the proper settings during the period of use of the breast pump. It is therefore an object of the invention, to provide an improved breast pump that takes into account the period before and after the actual milk expression. More particular, it is an object of the invention to provide an improved breast pump that works efficient during the period of use of the breast pump and at the same time is easy-to-use.